People Share Their Stories

Our Place - Newtown - Loretto Thurgood

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Loretto grew up in Newtown and Erskineville and loved Newtown. Her story has a strong focus on domestic life, women's work and children's play. She was familiar with the various shops and businesses in Newtown and Erskineville. The various theatres and vaudeville were popular entertainments, as were street/pub brawls: (The funny part about it was if a woman come around the corner from Erskineville Road with a pram they'd stop and let her go through and then they'd start the fight all over again!) Her happiest memories are of Sunday school picnics and Sunday school lantern slides, but she also enjoyed Union and Council ferry picnics to Clifton Gardens in the days of the Dixieland dance hall there. Loretto remembers festivities associated with the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and kids' antics at cracker night. She recalls her ballet and tap dancing classes before the effects of the Depression set in, as well as her strict 'ladylike' upbringing. Sex education was non-existent and an illegitimate birth (was a deep, dark secret in the family).